Jen Chapin - City lyrics

He awakes And puts his pride into his pockets And decides to walk into the day He does his strange dances For strangers he meets along the way Sometimes it sets him free to be his own imagining A thing no small town would allow Sometimes it leaves him stumbling on the street He takes an empty bow I live in a city that has no past I live in a city where dreams fade fast I live in an over ripe fruit Where pa**ions call out and then fall mute Where sweetness struggles to be heard Where shame can die without a word Purpose paints her face for her race Through the smoke of hidden holes and greasy fires She has no breath to waste on the taste Of knowing other people's desires It seems there is no fear in her A conspirator with the arrogance of brick and steel Too many people to wonder about She's off to make another deal I live in a city where stories are cast I live in a city where illusion grows vast I live on an island so bold Its fiction captures us in its hold Its voices somehow sing the same song With furtive words we sing along And there's a man whose face is a pile of brittle wood And his smile just needs one spark To set it aflame And there's a woman who walks with her boy bandaged up Her face is a cup holding all his hurts And I see a puffed up man in a three-piece pout Not a doubt in his mind that the city is his But what if all these faces were to welcome us in? What a place this would be what a place to live in